


Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

by Tasseomancy



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-01
Updated: 2014-09-30
Packaged: 2018-02-19 08:42:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2382080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tasseomancy/pseuds/Tasseomancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Series of oneshots to practice making distinctive voices and work through my ideas for how different characters think and how they cope with things. Each chapter is a different character. (tags for characters added as their chapter goes up)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Duo

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a nod to the play/movie of the same title which is about 2 minor characters from Hamlet. I thought it was appropriate since the original work is a combination of character analysis, existential/4th wall discussion, and retelling of Hamlet and these oneshots are a mix of character analysis, prose practice and telling of how I think they'd react to life after the war. And I'm not super creative.
> 
> Something that's important to note I guess is that every chapter will have a different writing style, some will be pretty straight forward and some will be kinda artsy. It all really depends on who it is. So that might a bit jarring at times.

He'd never thought about what he'd do when it was all said and done. It wasn't like he'd had a normal life before all this shit. What the fuck was he gonna do now that everything was peace on earth and a happy new year? He didn't really have a set of skills for civilian life. Being a piece of shit was not resume material.

He sighed and stuck his hands deep into his coat pockets, drawing himself in against the bullshit artificial winter. Seriously, why even make that? It'd been a about 7 months since the war had ended and he'd been mooching off Hilde the whole time. He was probably more a mess now then he'd been back when he was fighting OZ. Sure he'd been a good 15 pounds lighter and half fucking crazy with sleep deprivation and paranoia 90% of the time but he knew what was what. It wasn't unjustified fucking paranoia either, it was the real fucking deal unlike this shit, the kind you get when you know about a thousand people wanna personally put you in the ground. It kept him together, it was just like the streets but worse. Familiar and sharp, it cut him when he got too cozy with life, set all his nice new toys on fire. He was made for sharp things, made for life on the knife edge. He was born with the Grim Reaper's scythe at his neck and he'd been bullshitting him for years. _Just one more day, just one more day..._

Now he was all fuzzy and janky, like a fucked up clock or bad cable. He freaked when he shouldn't, couldn't sleep through a night, checked locks, _added locks_ , he couldn't remember jack shit about anything. He was tv static. Reception getting worse and worse as the signal got shittier and shittier. He'd taken to wandering  the streets of L2 at night, when all the knives starting glinting in the shadows, feeling like a worn out sweater unravelling. The farther he walked the more it felt like he was losing his threads and soon there'd just be a trail of tin can memories behind him and he didn't know how to fucking knit.

But what the fuck was he gonna do? Lock himself in Hilde's bathroom and pray it got better? Fuck that shit up the ass. That was a one way trip to crazytown and he was not having it. Better to get out and throw himself onto the tender mercies of the jagged edges and lurking shadows and pray he came back semi-presentable.

He hated Hilde seeing him like this, hated her seeing just how fucked up he was. He wanted to look like the cool Gundam pilot, the God of Death who spared her and deemed her cool enough to hang. He didn't want her to know just how much of a trash heap he was. He was broken and fucked up and she was so god damn nice. So fucking god-damn-actual-good-person nice and it was some shit he couldn't handle. She'd wanna help but man, there ain't no cure for deadbeat garbage. He didn't want her to waste her time on his janky ass, she was the real deal. A real normal ass person with like, a family and a home and life and a future. And he was a homeless ex-murderer with more cons then pros. Even he knew that was the makings of disaster. Take a good person, put a guy like him next to them, watch that good person go up in smoke. Facts of life.

It hurt though, because he'd wanted that. Wanted the kind of life she had before he knew how to use the word 'want'. He'd cut his teeth on that want, feasted on it when there was no dinner, wrapped himself in it when he was cold. He'd killed over that want and now, now he was too god damn fucked up to get it. And Hilde wanted to give it. And he wanted to take it. But facts of life said that was a great way to have no more Hilde. So what the fuck was he gonna do? be a lonely old bastard or ruin a person he fought to keep safe.

He never planned this shit out. He never thought he'd live this long, he'd wanted it for sure. He was good at wanting, a god at it. But he'd never expected it, never sat down and said "and then what?". He'd spent so long whispering _one more day, just one more day_. Now he all the days he could ever want. The best way to fuck a person over, give them what they say they want. The Grim Reaper was such a dick.

 He laughed bitterly at the crosswalk, waiting for the walk sign watching the cars fly by, mechanically gauging how lethal being hit by them would be. The street glistening from fake rain. It brightened and warped the world. Building and then distorted mirror buildings, lights in the sky and the ground. It was pretty too, Hilde'd like it. He walked out with the crowd, deciding to drop by a take out joint and grab them dinner. It'd look like that was the reason he'd bounced and be a little apology for being so shitty. He'd never planned for his life after the war but when the fuck did he ever really plan anything? He was just gonna not think about it, go home to a cute girl and a warm couch and not fucking think about a god damn thing. Shit would sort itself out eventually. He'd figure out being real eventually. He was fantastic at bullshitting.


	2. Wufei

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second one! Written at the same time as Duo. I'm debating how to order these when I've got the others written. Keep them in order as chronologically written? Or by character numbers?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this one is probably the first in chronological order to get weird formatting wise. So bear with me here. It should be fairly readable, it's not really crazy just more technical? Yeah.

**Night by Chang Wufei**  
 _Annotated by The Subconscious_  
  


  
 **Table of Contents**

  1. _An inner monologue_
  2. _Closing revelation by_ _The Subconscious_



  
  
     He'd started to develop a bad habit of drinking coffee at night.  
  
     It started when he'd wanted a hot drink while he read. It became a reoccurring problem when he wanted to stay up later and later. He'd never say it was to run from his demons, just that he wanted to read. 1 Reading was something he knew, there was a system to reading, it was solid and he could be productive while he was trying to block everything out. The process was this: first he would read reports and files from the war, then he would move to books and articles on science, then as he was preparing to sleep he would read poetry and literature.2  
  
     He would record, discover, and dissect buds of language in the halo of light from the floor lamp dragged from it's correct spot to be next to him. His idle hand wrapped around a warm mug of black coffee as he worked. Around him the apartment was empty, his dinner-table-turned-desk the only place there was movement, the only sound the ticking of the clock and the shuffling of paper. In the dark places his thoughts waited for him, but in the world of words was a cold,logical peace in which he could hide. It was a sanctuary in the somber ossuary of his life. It was a thing he could do, something solid he could hold out and use to say "look, I am not so empty".  
  
      He was nothing if not stubborn3 and when he joined Preventer his nighttime ritual was untarnished. The coffee stayed, the reading changed. He would read and prepare for the next day of work late into the night then, at 2am, he then would put it all away, turn out the light and go to the small room he kept the altar in. He would turn on the small light there and sit before the spirits of his colony, of Meiran and Treize, the people who could never be exorcised from him. He didn't think of them as haunting him, not anymore, he had to some extent, resolved his inner struggles with how he felt about his failures.4 They had never tormented him, he had tormented himself.5  
  
     He would sit there and go through the proper motions and talk to them about what they would deem interesting in that dim, hazy light. The souls he talked to pressing against him making his back stiffen with the weight of their lives. When he was finished he would leave them and walk calmly to his room.6 He would slip into his bed take the book off his nightstand and read there until his mind was full of blossoms of metaphor and delicate veins of phrasing. He would then wake in the morning and go through his day.  
  
     Order was his salvation. He filed his life like a museum curator, carefully placing the pieces of his life into compartments far away from each other. the shelves of his collection creating a labyrinth which shielded him from the feelings that stalked him, hid them away in caskets and reliquaries. He would return after dusk to a dark apartment. He would make a single, solitary meal, sit at the dinner table built for four but only ever used for one, then clean the dishes, return to the table and read. Tight, repeated, controlled motions in the only speck of light in a dark, vacant place. The opposite of his life at work and much more telling. The night was the hardest. The reflection of his tang zhaung ghost white in a black window mirrored his unobstructed heart. It was easy to continue on when working there was always a task to be done. But here, alone in his apartment the things that made him feel 7  tested the limits of his order's locks.

* * *

_Annotations_

  1. He rarely admitted to anything so personal.
  2. Plotting out movements and events, commenting and taking notes, noting good crafting and writing his thoughts on the work respectively.
  3. Being stubborn was the one thing he let himself be without a fight.
  4. He would always say it was completely resolved if asked.
  5. This truth was still too much for him to bear.
  6. He always walked away at a normal pace from that room even though he _burned_ to run to his room and slam the door, keep them out and hide under the covers. It was too much. He was not strong, not enough for this.
  7. The things he could not take.



 

  
  
 **Closing Revelation**

  
     Wufei knew he could not live like this, not for long or at least not well.

     He knew that his fortress of words and academia would topple around him and the arms of his people would be around him to caress the parts of him he could not bring himself to accept. He knew that soon his fears would be realized and he would have to once again sit down and really _look_ at himself. The sense of self he had gained in the war was gone in this tranquil world. There was no one left to guide him through these internal struggles now, there was no more quest for justice or integrity he could use to come to terms with the world and his place in it. There was no one left for him to take on the words of. He had done his part and did his research and wrote his thesis. It wasn't an option to adopt another's theory anymore. He had to forge his own path completely. It was time to move from reference to prose.    

     He knew for all the love and comfort he found in the world of smooth pages and papery smells the sheer intensity of his emotions would not be contained in them for long. He cursed himself daily for being so weak. He felt a thousand different fires in him on any given day and he hated that he could not quench them. Part of strength was self-control and he had only the barest facade of control. It was a sign that he was not yet strong, that he may never be strong. He heart was too vast and volatile and it would not let him rest. He stood no chance against it's strength so he hid like a coward and hated himself for it. He had not yet given up the idea that footnotes and addendum were a sign of mastery and power. At least, that this fiery, wild way was a path he could take. Using the strength of feelings and letting passions make you into iron was Meiran's strength. And despite how much he burned to break out of his confined ways and blaze like she had his heart was still too battered and raw. So he read, and drank his coffee and prayed that one day the night would not be so very dark.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt for this one was 'Night'.
> 
> I thought that mirroring the detached, action based writing in the format would be a nice way to emphasize the focus on control and order. I hope that came through ok and it's not just all weird nonsense.
> 
> Wufei is a character that's near and dear to my heart. His entire character arc in Gundam Wing is mainly just him trying to cope with his place in the world and the things that have happened to him. He comes in some what lost, just trying to uphold Meiran's ideals and ends trying uphold his colonies, then in Endless Waltz he has subconsciously taken on Treize's ideals. He takes on the ideals of others because he has no real stance of his own at the start and over time it becomes a means of keeping those people alive in some way. 
> 
> Wufei was a scholar so I feel like he would use that background as a coping mechanism since there are set procedures for academia. But Wufei himself is actually very passionate and intense, he tries to be collected but it's not really how he's built. I think that would be a struggle for him and would explain some of his actions. Wufei doesn't half-ass shit, even stupid shit, he whole-asses everything and then some.

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt for this was 'Never'.
> 
> As I've thought more and more about Duo I'm more and more convinced He's a manic unstable kid at the bottom of it all. Basically just intense manic laughter 24/7.
> 
> I also think that out of all of them he was the least well fed, his start on the streets being rough and his time with constant meals few and far between after he was off them. His growth would have been affected and he would probably struggle with eating for years to come. It's depressing but I think that it's pretty realistic.
> 
> Yeah, honestly all my thoughts on Duo are generally depressing which sucks because I love him and just want him to be happy.
> 
> I'm trying not to make these too shippy but the technical canon is them being at least together for a little. I also don't like shunting Hilde to the side.


End file.
